A while ago I met a young woman from Satara district, Maharashtra in India. Let’s call her Lakshmi. A secondary school graduate, wife and mother of two children, she described her efforts to improve her family’s economic status. She had started by selling products door-to-door for a multi-level-marketing brand. She then discovered bee-keeping via a YouTube video and was soon selling her own brand of honey on Facebook. Her enterprise not only gave her children small ‘luxuries’ they could not previously afford, but gave Lakshmi pride in her accomplishments and in the contribution she was making to her family. I was impressed with her dynamism and told her so. She responded, “But, you know, my whole family wants me to fail.” She went on to describe how she had to ensure her children never fell ill or did poorly at school and that her in-laws’ every need was well taken care of. Any lapse on these fronts was attributed to her not devoting her full attention to the family. Her persistence and resilience despite the utter lack of family support was simultaneously inspiring and heartbreaking. A few days later, still overwhelmed by Lakshmi’s experience, I shared her story with two colleagues at Ashoka University. These women, both highly qualified and extremely successful, heard me out, then said, “But, you know, it’s the same for us.” Their words, like Lakshmi’s, felt like a body blow. They challenged every notion of ‘women’s empowerment’ we practice in the social sector. They dramatised for me just how seriously the sticky floor of grossly unequal gender role expectations hampers the aspirations of women of all socio-economic categories everywhere.

 Yesterday, I re-told Lakshmi’s story at a panel discussion on ‘Unlocking Potential for Women’s Inclusion and Security’ co-hosted by UN Women India and the Bombay Stock Exchange in the run up to International Women’s Day. This time around I was less shocked by the number of successful, professional women who came up to me to share how they shared Lakshmi’s experience. An investment banker on the panel spoke of the many overt and covert biases women entrepreneurs face in seeking funding for their ventures in an overwhelmingly male domain. From blatant sexism to the unwritten rules of the ‘boys club’ it’s clear that the glass ceiling is far from being shattered despite the emergence of women venture capitalists and a smattering of funds focused on investing in start-ups founded and led by women.

 What will it take for women to have a fair shot at realising their potential and achieving their aspirations? What chance is there that India will achieve its potential, or even its SDG goals, unless we address both sticky floors and glass ceilings? Part of the answer lies in representation. In policy design, politics, business, media, entertainment and every other sector. We have been, I fear, too polite in ensuring that women and other genders claim our fair share of opportunity. Providing protection, support, allyship and solidarity to girls and women facing backlash in their families, communities, workplaces and the wider world when they seek to exercise agency, is another key element. Sharing the platforms to which some of us have gained access with other less privileged women would help. So too, would working with men and boys on how masculinity is defined and exercised and showcasing role models - individual and institutional. Building widespread awareness of the avenues and protections that exist is a fourth. Ensuring that financial management is a core part of school curricula is another. Understanding that ‘women’s economic empowerment’ is complex, not just a question of opening bank accounts in our names, or providing us with smartphones and internet access, or delivering narrowly defined ‘skill-building’ programmes or ‘market linkages’ or access to micro-credit would help enhance the impact of such investments as are being made through CSR initiatives and other philanthropic interventions. And we need to step up those investments manifold. And direct most of it to the movements advocating gender equity.

 The women I met yesterday, many colleagues and friends, women in my family and neighbourhood, and women leaders around the world are all reminders of what women are achieving despite the daunting odds, and the price we are paying to do so. If everyone who wishes us this Women’s Day would take some time to listen to the women around them on the subject of their own sticky floors and glass ceilings, we might just accelerate progress towards making empowerment, and all its downstream benefits, a reality.